


Like the Course of a Stream

by Niki



Series: My Lady of Grace [3]
Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), The Mummy Series
Genre: Backstory, Death in the Context of Reincarnation, Dreams, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Future Fic, Happy Ending, It's Jonathan's Fault Again, Past Lives, Rebirth, Reincarnation, Romance, spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6584416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was not Evelyn, nor Nefertiri – but she was never just Eva either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like the Course of a Stream

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the “Death is before me today” poem, 12th Dynasty
> 
> For Small Fandom Big Bang
> 
> Trope Bingo Round 6 Prompt: Reincarnation / Immortality
> 
> My artist disappeared at some point of the process (I hope everything is okay with her), so I had to scramble for a replacement, and luckily I know some super talented and lovely people in real life. Kacsa ET and TT. created some awesome stuff in a very short time, and it was wonderful to be co-operating with them on this!
> 
> I also need to thank my alpha reader [Neith](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MerNeith/pseuds/MerNeith) who not only proof read this, but was with me every inch of the process, even when I read the same damn paragraph to her for the tenth time in a row. She was an invaluable help in the construction of this story.
> 
> It was a joy to work with you, ladies, and I hope we can do this again!
> 
> My artists: Kacsa ET (Kacsa ET on DeviantArt, Ankkacsa on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ankkacsa) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/ankkacsa/)) / TT. (Toothpudding on [Tumblr](http://toothpudding.tumblr.com/), Shivikai on [deviantArt](http://shivikai.deviantart.com/), and [Streams](https://www.twitch.tv/missstress) daily as MissStress)
> 
> Art posts: TT. on [Tumblr](http://toothpudding.tumblr.com/post/142964845559/illustrations-done-for-a-fanfic-by-my-friend/) and Kacsa ET on [DeviantArt](http://img11.deviantart.net/b313/i/2016/108/9/e/in_betweeners_by_kacsaet-d9ze3py.jpg)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/Header02_zps1rsv86zd.jpg)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Jonathan_zpsmncmhfy3.jpg)

What people always forget is that the same parents who raised Evelyn raised Jonathan as well. He grew up hearing Arabic and English, the Coptic of his mother, the Old Tongue of his father's studies. 

He's not stupid, he never was. Lazy, maybe, always willing to play hooky, to prank, and play, and avoid his duties. But he learnt his hieroglyphs, he learnt his myths, he learnt his history. Even if he only uses his studies to recognise things of value, well, he's still making use of them.

He's been employed as a guide, a digger, a scribe, an interpretor, a companion. He's valued goods and finds, and if his nimble fingers occasionally made certain, tiny, insignificant trinkets fall into his own pocket, well, he viewed it as a perk of the job. 

He's forgotten much, and by the time his nephew decides to meddle with the forces of life and death, he knows he can't help him, knows he can't read old Egyptian anymore, not after all these years. 

He almost laughs for the irony of fate when the only hieroglyph he'll never again forget, “amenophus,” is the one his nephew cannot recall. 

He'll bet the lad will never forget, either, after that. Not after it brings his mother back to life. 

That's another think Jonathan never forgets: Death is not the end.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

Eva was never just Eva. She grew up believing everyone had two lives – those they lived at night, and those they lived during the day. When she was old enough to learn the others didn't spend their nights the way she did, she soon learnt to keep quiet about it.

It didn't all come to her at once. When she was a child, she dreamt of Nefertiri's childhood, of Evelyn's. She learnt Arabic and Egyptian the way she learnt English, but soon learnt to keep that secret, as well. 

When she was seven she found a family to befriend, to explain her knowledge of Arabic. They understood her Egyptian Arabic, even though to them it wasn't their native tongue, and all archaic forms were excused as being learnt from movies. 

Her knowledge of Egyptian she learnt to keep silent completely, her earlier public speaking of it ignored as made up babbling of a child. 

It made her a different child, quiet and withdrawn, because what she lived through daily couldn't be shared. She grew up faster than she should, and knew things sooner than she should have.

When she hit puberty, she started to dream about Khamudi, about Rick. She was a virgin who knew everything her body could do, could feel. She knew love, and pain, and longing. And if she lived, the soul of those two women in a new body, did he, the soul who had been Khamudi and Rick?

When she dreamt of the murder of her father she didn't dare to sleep for days. When she finally fell asleep again, she dreamt of that again and again, with a heavy sense of foreboding. 

She dreamt of everyday occurrences in their lives, their training. She took up martial arts to see if this body could do what the soul had been able to. She read about Egyptology, and at seventeen, first encountered the name of Evelyn Carnahan O'Connell. 

It was real. Her memories of her past lives, were real. Evelyn had written extensively about Egypt and its antiquity, even if she never could reveal the source of her knowledge. 

Why should Eva repeat the things she'd already done? But what else was she going to study besides Egyptology, archaeology, history? 

And how could she be with anyone but her soulmate? But how could she even go about finding him?

Oh Gods, was their son still alive? Their grandchildren? She would have needed therapy so badly, but who could she tell? Anyone who'd believe her stories of past lives wasn't anyone whose help she'd trust.

What of her parents? Where they reborn souls of the Pharaoh and his queen? Of Professor Carnahan and Ese? It was weird to love three different set of parents and only interact with one of them – the dreams and memories were static, she could only view and relive them. The waking word was dynamic, the choices never made before, the conversations never had.

It was lucky this set of her parents was affluent enough to finance her hobbies, and distant enough to let her puzzle her dual... threefold existence.

“What did you dream about?” 

“I was in Egypt again.”

“Those dreams? I thought you grew away from those.”

“I still have them. It was beautiful. We sailed the Nile.”

“Did you watch those documentaries again?”

“I watched the Death on the Nile with Pops, it must be that.”

“Yes, of course.” The relief in her mother's voice was telling, and Eva vowed to remember better to keep silent about her nights.

There was only one person she could talk about the dreams with. John Sterling, a boy she met at school, and instantly recognised as the brother she hadn't had this time around. His first words to her were “I'm sorry, Evy,” and she hugged him in the middle of the courtyard.

(Of course she didn't yet remember what he was apologising for.)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

Ricket wasn't as lucky. He also grew up dreaming, but his dreams were different, scary – Khamudi grew up as an orphan, trained to fight, Rick grew up in an orphanage in Cairo. The languages he learnt were always the colloquial version, filled with curse words and aggression, and had his mother had the money, he would have been in therapy so fast. 

He never could figure out, later, if that was a good thing or not. And at least soon he dreamt of silly escapades and hustling and drinking, making his nights easier.

Still, he hated the dreams until the first time he saw Her. He saw Khamudi's Golden Lady, and Rick's Evelyn, and he fell in love again and again. 

For the first time it made him go out to see if the things he dreamt about could be real. He found a book about the Foreign Legion, in French, and understood enough to be scared – or hopeful. His Arabic was coarse, but he could make himself understood, at least in bars. 

And the library listed works by a renown Egyptologist, Dr Evelyn Carnahan O'Connell, married to one Richard O'Connell. 

He had never read anything academic unless forced to, but – even though this wasn't for fun per se – he found himself checking out a book after book on Egypt, its history, the archaeology, the neighbouring countries, researching the languages until he found the one Khamudi spoke.

At one point, he spent most of his time wishing he was asleep, because the dreams were much more vivid than his real life, the contentment of Rick's and Khamudi's something he envied. 

But how could he find Her? 

Rick had had to learn to trust fate, and had clung to that realisation in the Scorpion King's temple – if he was “born to protect this woman” surely the fates – the Gods – the God – Destiny, would make sure Ricket would meet her too?

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Nefertiri_zpsxt3uc2ku.jpg)

Nefertiri was born as the Nile flooded, a favoured daughter of a flourishing land. Her mother was the Queen, so she was raised by an army of attendants, nurses, servants and slaves of the royal court. 

When she had seen her fifth summer, a prince was born, a golden boy, healthy and loud, and everyone knew he would rule the land one day. Nefertiri never envied him for it. She had her own sacred duty, her own future mapped as clearly as his.

She was being raised as a warrior priestess of Hathor, and once she left her father's court, she would live out fer life at Dendera in her temple, serving for the rest of her days. 

She was always content with this. She loved her blades, and never feared to get sweaty and bloody. The joy of combat was enough for her body, she never longed for a lover's embrace, even when her agemates giggled about the endowments of their lovers. 

The goddess was her mother, her sister – she needed no earthly lover. 

She was confident of this, until she walked into her Father's throne room, and met the eyes of a naked slave, a defeated enemy of the land, kneeling before his throne. 

She would later swear her Ba recognised his when their eyes met. She was so paralysed by this that it took her a second to realise the other slaves were revolting, and seizing weapons from the guards. 

That second would have been her end, had the warrior not stopped the blade aimed at her, joining the fight against his fellow soldiers. She fought her own way to her Father, to always stand between him and death, until the Medjai joined in, and the rest was slaughter. 

She wondered if she should detest the warrior for turning against his own, but she knew he had to know as much as she – their souls had met.

Her father gave him his freedom in return for her life, and the medjai claimed him as one of their own. Maybe they recognised his Ba as well. Maybe he really was a brother to them all, born into a wrong land, now finally reunited with his home.

[](http://41.media.tumblr.com/c3674c4201fdde50ab99e0ddc30d8176/tumblr_o5siunQDN51v71e6to4_1280.png)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Jonathan_zpsmncmhfy3.jpg)

Jonathan hated seeing his sister in such a state, gasping for breath, her already thin face getting thinner, paler, the lines of laughter turning into the lines of age. 

He hated the helpless sorrow on the face of the strongest man he'd ever known. He hated the absence of laughter, of smiles, of joy, that had always been such an integral part of their lives, which Jonathan had always been welcomed to share.

He hated the fear on the face of his nephew, the bright lad growing silent and withdrawn. 

They had lived through so much, rampaging mummies, Egyptian plumbing, intercontinental flights, Nazis, the wars and plagues and mysteries and adventures, only to be brought to their knees by mere illness. 

He refused to accept his sister was dying. He refused to say goodbye. 

And maybe they wouldn't have to.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Rick_zpsywxpyiht.jpg)

Rick had never cared that much about the history of the land he almost found himself dying in so many times, in the hands of the law, or bandits, or supernatural entities. He only cared to know enough to survive. 

But Evy lived and breathed the history of her second homeland, and Rick had learned to love it for her sake. Or at least live with it. He knew how to wield the brush to uncover the most fragile painting, how to use the shovel to only shift sand, not what was hidden under it. It's not like it was their job to do the actual physical labour, they had diggers for that, but Evy could never resist the lure of the dig for long, and usually ended up down in the ditch with their crew, so naturally Rick would join her. 

After Alex was born, she just did it with a baby strapped to her chest, like the natives did, in a manner that would have made their English neighbours gasp in shock. And soon little Alex was down there digging with them, growing under the sun, hands in the dirt and mind in the past.

Rick never begrudged their shared passion, loved the excitement on both of their faces when she taught him the language, the hieroglyphs, then hieratic, and finally demotic, the last and most difficult form of the writing. 

When not actually working their family vacations, they visited museums all over the world, and even during the war years they made time for it, and were taken to see hidden treasures, even smuggling some out of the conquered countries to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis. It was one third a thrilling adventure, two thirds the same old danger as usual. They both missed Alex tremendously, but he was their greatest treasure, and after almost losing him to the trinket and the again-risen mummy, they were both more hesitant in exposing him to danger. 

He just wished Alex would not resent them for the rest of his life. Still, he'd take it, if it meant his son was safe and alive. 

They'd had never been blessed with another child, no matter how much they tried. (And it was a lot. Like, a lot.) (Evy had matched his passion from the beginning, and it was more exhilarating that any encounter he'd had in the past, even after all these years with her.) Alex was their one and only, their future – the only way they wanted immortality, their bloodline continuing through him.

When he fell in love, and married, and gave them grandchildren, it again felt like their family was complete. 

Rick had never even considered it when he was younger, forced to look after the smallest children in the orphanage. He'd hated the responsibility back then, hated how it made him worry whether Bakr was getting enough food because the older children stole his meals, how it forced him to walk little Daisy everywhere, because she was too blonde and too pretty to walk alone. He'd known he'd never have children, in case they ended up like this, because he wasn't good enough to protect them, because he could never find anyone he'd _want_ to have kids with, because love and marriage were the stuff of myths and fairy tales. 

Evy had been a dream come true even as he'd never known he even had that dream. Someone he could trust to have children with, and when he first held his red and squirming little son, wailing his lungs out, he fell in love so deeply it almost rivalled his love for his wife.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Nefertiri_zpsxt3uc2ku.jpg)

His name was Khamudi. His limbs were formed like a statue's, his skin the colour of burnt sand, and his eyes the brown of a date bread. His smile was rare, but the more beautiful for it, and his tongue stumbled over their language. 

He never spoke to her, she never spoke to him. But did the Medjai use to train so close to her balcony? Maybe she had just never spent as much time sitting up there herself. 

His form was different from the others, his movements alien in their fluidity, and she longed to copy some of the moves he taught his fellow soldiers. They taught him their form, their moves, their weapons, and he absorbed everything like dry land drank water, and they all grew stronger for the exchange. 

She wanted. Her body longed for his, the expanse of naked skin she saw during the day, in her dreams, until she burnt. She craved. His laughter was a sound more precious than the bird song, the melody of an unrestrained stream. 

His words carried wisdom and humility, his eyes meeting hers only by accident, and then turned, only to return, to then dart away, because he knew he had no right, it wasn't his place. She knew he could never be allowed to touch, even had she not been what she was, because of who she was. 

The Medjai were honoured, but not that highly. She could never be his wife, and she could accept nothing less.

Then came the night her Royal Father was betrayed and murdered, and she witnessed it all from the balcony she had once again walked into to spy on the soldiers beneath her on the courtyard. What she spied instead was a nightmare. 

Anck-su-Namun, her father's favoured concubine, more skilled with a blade than Nefertiri, a warrior tasked with keeping the God on the Throne alive and safe. That she would raise a blade against him, would defile her body with a touch of another man... 

She knew he was dead long before Khamudi knelt by her, and shared the news, easily slipping into the form of the etiquette to name the unnameable. “The falcon is flown to heaven and his son is arisen in his place.” 

She allowed herself this one night of weakness, let herself meet his eyes if not his hands, and let him be there for her as she wept.

[](http://40.media.tumblr.com/3e2721dbae47336c962d195c4cae6955/tumblr_o5siunQDN51v71e6to3_1280.png)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

Eva doesn't do it on purpose, to distance herself from Evelyn. It's just that the times are different, and no matter that she grows up as much in the early 20th Century as the late, the mores she adopts are very much the latter. That means trousers are the way to go. Skirts are for fancy parties and masquerades.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

“Ricket” was a compromise. It wasn't his name, it wasn't even close to his name, but he kept confusing his name when he was a child, insisting he was called “Rick,” so his mother started calling him Ricket, maybe as a joke, or an affectionate, indulgent way to keep him happy.

Later he learnt it was an archaic nickname of “Richard” and burst out in laughter in the library where he was reading the name book.

Was it a coincidence, they wondered later, that she had a second name that could be shortened to Eva, and he something which had so easily transformed into something more reminiscent of the name he'd spent most time as.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

Sometimes the dreams are more like dreams, when a lot happens over a short period of time, like a recap of intense weeks of her past lives. Sometimes they are in real time, like the night she spent kneeling on the palace balcony with Khamudi, and woke up exhausted and sad, and hugged her father at breakfast, making him suspicious and weary.

She doesn't know how the call is made, but it seems to come with age. She's glad that as a child she just played the night through, or studied words with two different mothers. 

She could have lived without the night she gave birth. All. Night. Long. Evelyn was ready for it in her early twenties, but Eva most assuredly was not. And she didn't even get to keep the baby when she woke up. She suffered from phantom pain during the day, too.

When in the chronology of their lives Evelyn and Rick are trying for another baby, the sight of her menstrual blood makes her cry until she remembers who she is. She loves Alex fiercely like a mother, his laughter following her during the day just as Rick's touch and Khamudi's smouldering eyes do.

She wishes sometimes she could communicate with her past selves, some decisions and choices make her want to scream in frustration. Of course, she has the benefit of the hindsight now, but she can't _believe_ some things she's done in her life. Lives.

The food doesn't ever taste the same, no matter how many dates she buys and mushes into the bread. Maybe it's the lack of sand? Nefertiri would have _loved_ sugar. (And ice – she would totally have loved ice.)

Training isn't as simple as dreaming about it – even if Nefertiri spent the whole previous night training one particular move, it doesn't mean Eva can replicate it when awake. Their bodies are different, and muscle memory isn't made with the mind. She practices for hours at a time, wanting to attain the perfection she did when back in Kemet.

The languages are easier. She doesn't just see her previous incarnations speaking them, she is them in her dreams, she hears the people around her talk, and replies back. She just can't make any decisions, because everything is preordained there.

Sometimes her and John's dreams match – he doesn't talk about them much, but sometimes they've spent the night playing together as Evelyn and Jonathan, and laugh about it at school. Later, as adults, after the tense moments at the oasis

( _“That's my husband and son down there. Make me proud.”_

_“Today's the day, Evy.”_ )

she wants to fly to him and hug him so bad, but they live in different cities by then, often in different countries. Instead, she holds Ricket close and they talk about Alex, about his children, about finding them. (They never do.)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

Ricket didn't know what to do with his life. There wasn't much room for a mercenary soldier-of-fortune like Rick had been in the world today, and he couldn't see himself becoming a regular soldier, either. Special forces, maybe, but it required a commitment he wasn't willing to give. 

His commitment would always be to his princess, whether or not they'd meet in this life. (He had faith they would – Ardeth had been convinced their fates were entwined, and after all these lives – Ricket was finally willing to go along with it.) He couldn't risk dying before they met, because Evelyn – Nefertiri – Evelyn, whoever she was here, because she was probably – most likely – looking for him too, waiting for him, and he couldn't do that to her.

Or was she? Would she be bored with him after all these millennia, ready to move on? 

But even on his worst days he couldn't believe that for long. They'd gone through too much together, shared too much, for him to cheapen their bond with doubts. His wife would be looking for him, so he had his duty towards her to keep himself safe, and free.

But he couldn't just waste time until he met her, to then again take a supporting role to her interests, and her passion. 

For the first time, in his late teens, Ricket thought about what he would actually want to do, what he would be interested in. He'd chosen the easy route, sports scholarship, marksmanship, history – he'd been there, he could do WW2 history, especially the cultural history, in his sleep. (Probably better in his sleep.)

On a whim, he took an Egyptology class. 

Within a year he'd changed majors. Khamudi had learnt the language of Kemet as an adult, and had poured over the written word even though it was rare for the soldiers to know how to write and read. Ricket found himself correcting the teacher if he was too deep in thought during the classes, but, luckily enough, the first time it happened another student could back him up with a note from Gardner's dictionary, and the teacher started asking him for his opinion. 

It was heady. Rick had never remembered that much, and had not really been interested to learn. It had been Evy's thing, and she'd been teaching Alex. It was a thing the two of them shared. 

But Ricket was not Rick, despite everything, despite sharing the same soul, the same Ba, and he found he wanted to learn this, to do this. Maybe he couldn't revolutionise the scene the way Evelyn had, but he could contribute. 

And, yeah, maybe the chances of meeting Evelyn were higher if they were in the same field. He couldn't imagine her doing anything else, as they only other fields he could think of were libraries (too tame), politics (probably not her thing without monarchy, and she had spurned them even back then), or religion – but he doubted she'd become a nun.

No temples to Hathor in this time period, and Christianity was probably too young to tempt her. Maybe a soldier? Fencer? 

He'd write lists, then tear them up in case someone found them. He wasn't ashamed of who and what he was, but he didn't think explaining things to anyone would get him very far. 

He started writing poetry in kemetian, and published them on his own geocities page like a good little nerd. He was turning into the kind of a guy Rick would not understand, and even though Rick hadn't been a bully, he probably wouldn't have been so nice to them either. 

But... again, he wasn't Rick.

He was.... he was. And he loved, and longed for his love, and wished to share his life with her. But he also wished to have a life to share.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

Eva soon realised she did not have the patience for her studies anymore – she'd done this, she'd had these struggles, these fights, gone through this effort. She had her Doctorate, two of them, she did not want to be an undergrad again, not after her long and illustrious career. She had no patience for books, even as she devoured every article about the new discoveries, new theories, new finds. 

Was she being selfish? Evelyn had never remember her past this well, could Eva make discoveries she couldn't? Could she lead the searches into areas the others hadn't yet thought about? What if there was something left? 

But she decided, in the end, that she couldn't live her life for anyone else, she was already living for three people – or six, if she counted her husband, soulmate, how ever he should be referred to. 

She wanted something completely different, something Evelyn had only briefly embraced – she remembered the long hours of practice Nefertiri had devoted herself to, and wanted to get that control over her body back. 

An athlete or a soldier – she had been something in the middle, her skills both ceremonial as well as practical. She wanted a blade in her hand, she wanted to master guns again – on a level above what Evelyn had done, too. 

She had no right to die before she found him – but surely her Goddess would look after her? After all, her temples were silent, pagan gods having taken over her abodes and her worshippers. Becoming a nun would not fulfil her rites. Being a soldier would.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Rick_zpsywxpyiht.jpg)

It struck Rick occasionally how very young Evelyn was. They'd gone through so much together, endured so much, and felt so deeply, that he forgot at times that she really was a very young woman. She'd had to grow up young, losing her parents, looking after her rascal of a brother, trying to make her way in the masculine world of the academia. He was sure she'd had to face the burden of her “exotic” heritage, seeing as she showed it more than Jonathan, who looked like the epitome of an idle British gentleman. 

But she was so young. He had been her first kiss, and he close his eyes in remembered shame, thinking of the brute he'd been, stealing her first kiss as an impulse. Her lips had been soft, and he had still felt them on his lips when he walked to his death.

“That's all I am to you, a contract?” Evelyn had asked, the hurt so clearly visible on her face, audible in her voice, and she'd sounded so young, so lost, believing in the connection they'd forged in the desert, and he'd wanted to grab her with him, take her the hell away from the supernatural horror going around, because he wanted out, yes, every man for himself and all that, but he'd already known he wouldn't want to leave her behind. Wouldn't want to, and probably couldn't.

And now, when he had her, had her kisses, had her love, he felt like he could do anything, be anyone, even someone she could admire, respect, love. But she was so young. Would she grow over him? Learn to detest the fact he was not a learned man, preferring action over books, with no patience for brushing off bucket loads of sand when one could shovel it away in half the time?

He admired Evelyn for the work she did, for the dedication she had for her field, but it was not his field, not his strength, and would she resent that in the future? If he asked her to marry him, as he almost did every day on their way back to civilisation from Hamunaptra? He had wanted it to be perfect, not the heat of a moment – and it would have been damn awkward to make the rest of the journey if she said no.

They were back at Cairo now, and would soon have to go their own ways unless he did something, said something, to put them on the same path, because he knew she never would. She knew what she wanted, and was stubborn as a camel, but she could not be the one to propose marriage, or even living in sin.

For some reason, that hadn't even occurred to Rick as an option. Of course he desired her, but he would not take her for the pleasure of the flesh alone. She was too good to be anyone's mistress for one, but also... Rick had grown up believing that when you found the One, you married her. He had never _expected_ to find “the One” or even to be looking, to be honest, but somehow, with her, it seemed inevitable. 

He knew he couldn't let her go away. And that was stronger than his fear. 

(Of course she said yes.)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Jonathan_zpsmncmhfy3.jpg)

Jonathan walked Evelyn to the altar – not to give away, it wasn't his place. They were still reeling from their ordeal, and had no clue as to what to do with their lives. They were staying at a hotel, but that was only a temporary solution.

They had the gold they'd brought with them from Hamunaptra, and Jonathan couldn't wait to get his hands on his portion of it. They'd decided to divide it in three, even though Jonathan had tried to convince them that it should really be put in halves – one half for him, and one for them, as their fortunes were to be shared equally anyway under the matrimonial laws. He'd lost the debate.

They talked about going to Europe, to England, to see what was left of their ancestral home. Maybe being away from Egypt would do them all good, if only for a moment. But there was so much to do, the Cairo museum to fix, their travels to record, if only to aid in case someone else ran into their particular little mummy issue. 

Ardeth had even shown up one day, arranging for someone else from their little secret society to take the reins at the museum. He'd been more respectful this time around, and had been invited to stay for the wedding. He and Jonathan were the only witnesses. The big softy seemed to be really touched by the ceremony, and Jonathan was pretty sure he even heard him call O'Connell his brother. Well, sharing intense adventures could do that to a man.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

He feared he was rather a stereotype, with his tweeds and unkempt hair, his cat and piles of books. He did also have a laptop, a smart phone, and a collection of guns, just because the part of him that was still Rick and Khamudi would have felt way too unsafe without any in the house. (They had permits and everything.)

Occasionally it struck him, what all he could access and reach those two never could, and then he'd go to the movies, and galleries, and museums, ate out, all the exotics places he could find – none of it resembled the food Khamudi had eaten, and that was probably a good idea. 

He played games and read books and travelled to places Khamudi didn't even know enough to dream about. He longed for the presence beside him, the soul he knew was meant to travel with him, by him, now and forever, and there were places he left out to be experienced with her, whenever he found her – or she him. He wouldn't ever believe that he might not, not as long as he lived.

Every illness, every accident, every near miss was fought against, denied quarter. He could not leave before her, would not doom her to forever wonder about his fate. 

It was weird – he had enough faith in fate to believe she was here somewhere as well, but not enough faith in the predetermined nature of everything to believe that he couldn't die prematurely. 

Should he try craigslist? Looking for a reincarnated lover? He should try that, just for the laughs. He couldn't believe she'd ever answer an ad like that, because she'd never believe “her” man would ever to something so stupid!

He had read books about reincarnation, stories of children supposedly knowing too much about things they should never have heard about, but none of them had sounded familiar to him, none of them contained him or his truth, so he ended up developing a theory of their existence: first a duty, then a reward.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Jonathan_zpsmncmhfy3.jpg)

It was the best thing he'd ever done. Or possibly worst. There was a nagging doubt in his mind that his sister wouldn't thank him for it. She had always been more accepting of fate and destiny and all that rot. 

But this wasn't for him, it was for her. For her and Rick, so that they would never have to be parted by death. 

He'd researched and studied the spells and legends for years (sometimes with the aid of his nephew or sister, or even Ardeth, and hadn't that been a fun two weeks), but only now he realised why. Maybe he had always had this goal, but now, faced with the possibility of her death, he finally had a clear objective.

It amused him greatly that he managed to sneak “amenophus” into the spell.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

Bootcamp was hard, but she relished in the pain – it was different from anything Evy had done, even from what Nefertiri had done, although she would recognise a lot of it. 

It felt like something that was purely Eva, and she loved it. Her nights were still spent in Egypt, in Kemet, in England, running over the war time Europe with Rick, tending the garden at her temple, raising a son, studying an endless book after an endless book – but her days were her own, and different from anything that had happened before.

She swore in the harsh curses shed learnt by listening the medjai train – the seedy vocabulary of her mother tongue no one had ever taught her, the occasional escaped oath in Khamudi's native language – but the tone is eternal, and no one even blinked. 

When she used a dirty move she'd learned millennia ago the previous night they applauded her creativity, and when she aced her military history of WW2 she loved it more than the one year she'd spent as a humanist. 

When they marched, she taught them marching songs in Arabic. When deployed, she connected with locals easier than her comrades, knowing their language and faith – muttering prayers learnt in Evelyn's childhood living in a Muslim country, as much as her parents had tried to ignore the fact – her mother a Coptic Christian, her father a frustrated servant of Amun-Ra, although the actual rites might have shocked him.

And this career was as fulfilling to her as Evelyn's had been for her.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

It is surreal, sometimes, to read about a poem or a story in a text book and find out when it was actually written – Ricket remembers some of the tales the Medjai told, the songs he learnt, and to find out that some of them date back to the 12th Dynasty – the concept of dynasties as such would have been mind blowing to Khamudi. He came to Kemet in the hay day of the 19th Dynasty, and to the common men it seemed like the world had always been as it was, and would always stay the way, because it was too vast and too powerful to fall.

Some things that were so vital to them are hardly mentioned, and some things that went by without notice by them get so much room in the books and lectures. It is the every day living that is so hard to reconstruct, in which he could help, but couldn't verify any of his claims. Evelyn must have felt it too, even though her recollection hadn't been nearly as good as his, this time around.

He slips, every now and then, not remembering what he read from his exam books, and what he just knows to be true. He sometimes cringes when he has to learn wrong information and use it in essays and exams – he tries to avoid repeating the falsehoods, and often forgets them. Sometimes not, because it's something so glaring he remembers it as a joke, hoping to some day (soon) to be able to share it with his wife. Evelyn. Nefertiri. Who ever she is here. Maybe she's reading the same books, somewhere else? Maybe they are of age this time?

He considers a dissertation on Evelyn, and in the end goes for it, because it would be handy to know what is public information about their lives, what he could be expected to know. He combines it with a minor in gender studies, and knows Rick would laugh his ass off. Khamudi would be confused, but also very supportive. He wouldn't understand the concept of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

It's painful, unimaginably painful, and for more often than he cares to count, he almost gives up. To see Evelyn in the photos, with Rick, with her parents, with Jonathan, with Alex, with the staff at the British Museum, in Egypt... He misses her so badly he can feel it like a physical ache, an empty feeling where his heart should be. 

It's weird to see pictures of Rick, and he tries not to show them to people, lest someone will notice and remark upon his resemblance to the dead adventurer. Luckily people don't really look at faces that closely in old photos, and get so stuck up on minor details like the colour of one's skin.

His hair is darker than Rick's, not bleached in the sun of the desert, and he keeps it long, because he's not Rick, and he's not Khamudi, and long hair was a teenage rebellion against the images from his dreams, the shadow selves he grew up with. He exercises, yes, but he's not such a physical creature as the other two, and he can imagine how insulted they would be. 

Or would they? Khamudi might have chosen another life, had he not belonged to his king, and been trained as a soldier because of his height. By the time he reached Kemet fighting was already all he knew. Could he have been a poet, a courtier, a merchant, a farmer? He had softness in his soul, fragility of spirit, the openness to the unknown which had made his soul so receptive to finding its mate. He had believed in love at first sight, unlike Rick, unlike Ricket.

Then again, Ricket had been born loving only one woman, and he always would, whether he found her or not. What was that poem both Khamudi and Rick had quoted? I am as if in my tomb tonight?

_Thou beautiful one! My heart's desire is_  
_To procure for you your food as your husband,_  
_My arm resting upon your arm._  
_You have changed me by your love._  
_Thus say I in my heart,_  
_In my soul, at my prayers:_  
_"I lack my commander tonight,_  
_I am as one dwelling in a tomb."_  
_Be you but in health and strength,_  
_Then the nearness of your countenance_  
_Sheds delight, by reason of your well-being,_  
_Over a heart, which seeks you with longing._

Yeah, Khamudi would have understood choosing to wield words instead of swords.

Rick could respect it, but he probably never would have understood.

One thing which he hadn't really thought through was the remaining O'Connell family. Of course they'd care about the new book about Evelyn, and of course they would need to be contacted about private letters and diaries, and... they never would release the material they had if he didn't reveal who he was, and what he already knew. 

Not like he could write about the mummy coming back to life, even if he did have the sources, and if Alex was still alive (his little Alex, his darling son, the only child he'd ever had), he'd be an old man already, and would he recognise the father he'd lost in the face of this eager young scholar?

He probably really, really shouldn't have chosen this subject.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Rick_zpsywxpyiht.jpg)

“Darling, leave your weapons and come play with us.”

“I thought you were still buried in the musty old documents yourself.”

“No, Alex decided to excavate the garden.”

“He what?”

“Well, we weren't horribly attached to those roses in the first place, were we?”

“Is he finding something?”

“Well, I was kind of hoping you could distract him for a moment while I plant some coins for him to find. Maybe we could go over some tools as well...”

“What is he using now?”

“A trowel. And his hands.”

“Evy, wasn't he still in his Sunday suit a moment ago?”

“Maaaybe...”

“Our son is digging for treasure, with his bare hands, in a suit.”

“I didn't think you placed so much value on what we wore, Mr O'Connell?”

“True. Well, Mrs O'Connell, shall we go falsify a dig?”

“You're right, maybe it's too much to teach him there is always something cool to find. Maybe we should start with some bones from the chicken we had for lunch.”

“Evy, he's four. The bones will be cooler than the coins.”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

Eva often invoked her Goddess before doing something dangerous or demanding – she was raised a Christian, though the only creed her parents followed was habit, but it was not the new god of the Jews she prayed to at night, not he who she sacrificed food and myrrh for.

She followed the old ways as well as she could, had a small altar at her house with a statuette of Hathor as well as Iset and Sekhmet, and it was her goddess of war she asked for protection before a patrol. She never spoke about it to anyone, even the neo-pagans wouldn't recognise the formal prayers she repeated, the rituals she followed, and she did not want to mingle with them.

She recited the names of her dead, just in case the land in the West, the fields of Ḥetep she'd believed in when she was Nefertiri was still there, and had all the souls in it. Her fathers and mothers, her brother, her companions, family she'd lost, be it millennia or single years ago.

She never felt the light of answered prayers, but she felt the calm created by the familiar words and gestures, the reassuring weight of her amulets, the goddess around her neck, the wadjet in her pocket, the ankh in her wallet. She had a will, as all of the soldiers did, and in it she left everything to John, only asking to be buried with her amulets. 

She can't ask for mummification, not here, but the idea of cremation terrifies her, the old beliefs about the preservation of the body too ingrained, despite the two “modern” lives she's had.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/006%20Pendant_zpsu7k0tlj2.png)

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

His cat was not named Bast, as everyone assumed – how could he dare to name him after a Goddess he had believed in so fervently? He was called He-who-hunts-in-the-darkness, or Wehet for short, and he had less to do with Bast, and more to do with the fact that the mummy had feared cats the first time around. 

So a pet that he should have because of Khamudi was instead because of Rick.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Khamudi_zpsmoggg4u8.jpg)

Khamudi was almost sure his princess knew she was being followed, but maybe she thought she could take on anyone who would attack. He moved in the shadows, slept less than she did, just enough to keep his edge, and kept silent watch when she rested. If this was to be the rest of his life, he would go to his tomb well content.

He might never have a tomb, either, deserter as he was, breaker of vows, at least to anyone else. His brother had released him from his vow, that last night before his departure. Heru-desret had acknowledged that his vow to his golden lady was older than his oath to the Medjai, and told him to leave with his honour. 

The only thing he asked was that he'd come to their aid when asked, no matter how many years or leagues in between. He vowed to come to their aid, even from the West, as long as fulfilling that vow did not risk the life of his princess. Heru-desret assured him he would have expected nothing less.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

The night he dreamt of his own death Ricket woke up in cold sweat and heart beating overtime so that it felt like it was going to escape his chest. For the longest time he just lay in his bed, feeling his heart beating, and staring unseeingly at the ceiling. He had taped a plaque saying “you should be studying” in the middle of it, but the words made no sense, their shape all wrong, the language alien and unknown.

He could almost feel the sword that had pierced his body, the wounds that never had time to heal until he ran out of breath, and he was dizzy, like from blood loss.

He was dead. Khamudi, in their shared chronology, was dead. He died protecting his princess, and that would have made him content, but she had been wounded as well – did she survive? Did she outlive him? And why weren't they together in the West? Had their bodies been burnt, desecrated, so that their Ba and Ka had been unable to join again? 

But their Bas _had_ survived, they had been reborn thousands of years later to deal with the aftermath of their own time, and now again. 

Did it matter whether Nefertiri had lived? Her Ba had survived, and wasn't that all that mattered? She had to be around, now, or else what point was there to live, to survive, to be reborn here, now? 

Khamudi was dead. He wondered if that meant the dreams from his time would end, too. He mourned the loss like actual death. He had lived almost third of his life in that time, albeit in dreams, and the idea of losing it all, so abruptly... Would he forget the language? Her face? There was no one to talk to in the kemetian tongue without the dreams, only the stilted dead language of the inscriptions and royal tombs he used in his studies, and it wasn't the same, how could it be?

He lay in his bed for hours, mourning the life he'd lost, back then, and now.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Jonathan_zpsmncmhfy3.jpg)

Jonathan knew he'd screwed up a lot, never found love that stayed, and maybe he never settled, even when the golden women circled him whenever he had luck in his affairs, because he would never settle for anything less than what his sister had. 

His sister, his little mum, who looked after him for so long, who worried over him, scolded him, but let herself laugh at his antics, his touching stone to his past, his family. She was always so like their mother, especially after their first great adventure made her blossom, open up to her potential, and not all of it was due to the larger than life love she discovered. 

He never envied his sister and his brother-in-law, not really, but... he would also settle for nothing else. 

He sometimes dreamt of a life in the ancient kingdom, as Evelyn did, but he never shared his dreams, because... Ramses the Second? Really? His subconscious decided to make him the reincarnation of the greatest ruler in the history of the Pharaohs? Evelyn would laugh herself to an early tomb.

And Rick would be absolutely lost without her, so really, it was altruistic not to open his mouth. Definitely.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Evelyn__zpsaqijyqhp.jpg)

The fever would have taken Evy already in her fifties had she not fought Death like a foe, like she once had battled Anck-su-Namun, like so many as Nefertiri. She fought with her courage, her strength, everything she had, her stubbornness, her love, her desperation – after they had dreamt of the death of Khamudi with Rick she had become almost obsessive about their time together. 

She wasn't just living for herself anymore, not loving him just for their sake – she was living and loving for two now. They were the chance Nefertiri and Khamudi never had, they were the happiness those two were denied, and she would be _damned_ if she surrendered to death before they'd had their fill.

Maybe Jonathan picked up on that, even if they never talked about, and he never knew the root of her determination.

When she finally succumbed not quite ten years later, it was surrounded by her family, held by her husband, with her books written and her will in order. She had known she was living on borrowed time, and had made the most of it. 

She never knew how Nefertiri died, but she knew the princess never had this, and when the Ba that was them both departed from the land of the living, she touched her memories, her life, in a way she never had while living. Maybe it was their kas uniting with the ba they shared, with all the memories converging? Who knew, but Evelyn, while she was still Evelyn, thought she heard a whisper of “Thank you” from somewhere within her soul.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

_At least there's only three of us_ , she sometimes thought. It was bad enough with three, but if there were more lives, more Eves whose lives she'd remember and kept learning about, she would have been even more fractured.

And why was it only the three of them? Where had... she, her soul, her Ba, been in between? Would she one day remember the Fields of Ḥetep? Or Heaven? 

But if she had been in the West with Khamudi already, how was this a reward? Or was that just John's interpretation?

And did souls really have gender? Was Evelyn a woman because Nefertiri had been? Was Eva one because they had been? Or did this really say something essential about the nature of gender? Of sex? Of the soul/body dichotomy? Or was it just the Egyptian belief her Ba was tied to?

Because they all looked the same. Nefertiri had only ever seen herself in the polished surface of her bronze mirror, as a reflection on the surface of water, but she'd recognise her bone structure anywhere. 

It had made Evelyn look different from her family – the slightly exotic look that had been understood to be an inheritance from her Egyptian mother (and ignored furiously in the gentle circles of England) even though she hadn't really looked like her. Much less her very British father, whom Jonathan had favoured. 

And in Rick she had seen Khamudi, his eyes, his strength, his height, even though he'd looked different, too. Khamudi had not been as tall, and had had a darker skin. Like the same basic building blocks, but grown in a time when food was scarcer, where he couldn't grow as he had in the 20th century.

Would the man in this time period be even taller? Would she recognise him at sight? Even more importantly – would he recognise her, would he know all this? Did he grow up with three sets of memories, in three time periods at the same time?

Rick had not had a kind childhood, in the orphanage, and in the streets all too soon after that. He had had a wild youth – misspent, he'd say in a gloomy mood, but it was that past that had prepared him for what they faced when they met. 

Was that ordained, too, that he had to suffer to fulfil his role? Like Evelyn's struggle against academia – for acceptance despite her heritage, despite her gender – had made her stronger and more stubborn than the proverbial mule.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Jonathan_zpsmncmhfy3.jpg)

“What did you do?” there was quiet menace in the voice, and once again Jonathan was reminded of the fact Evy's husband was a dangerous, dangerous man, even at his age, even – or especially when faced with the loss of the centre of his life.

“I... I made a spell that allows your souls to reincarnate immediately.”

“Don't we already...”

“With all your memories. So that you can be together from the start.”

“Jonathan...”

“I know, I know, you're a little overwhelmed, but...”

“Does it ever end?”

“What?”

“How many lifetimes do we need to go through? Can't we finally... rest?”

“What on Earth are you talking about, old boy?”

“Khamudi thought he could meet his love in the afterlife, where they could finally be together. Her soul never reached his. Then we were bought back to... I think, well, she thought, because Imhotep was coming back.”

“But if they knew that, why did they allow it?”

“Who's 'they', Jonathan?”

“Oh bugger... Gods. God. The Fates, how do I know?” 

“Why do they allow anything?” Rick asked, and damn but he sounded tired and defeated, and that just strengthened Jonathan's resolve. 

“So you got dragged back, because the Unknown Powers Behind Everything needed someone to clear up the mess they'd caused.”

“And this time, we got to be together. We got to have a long life, we had a family, a son, grandchildren. Isn't that enough?”

“But she was taken away too soon.”

“It would always have been 'too soon'.”

“When did you get so bloody smart?”

“I lived with your sister for half my life, it was bound to rub off at some point.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“What she asked me to. Live my life to the end of my days, the best I can, then – if God be merciful – join her.”

“So... wallowing and drinking?”

“For starters. Do you still have some of that good stuff we put in the cellar after the war?”

“If this isn't an occasion, I don't know what is. Come on, let's drink London dry.”

“And no more talk of this... ritual.”

“Of course.”

It was done, after all. No point talking about it anymore. It was finished, and now all depended on Rick.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

“What did you do?” was how she greeted John when she came to pick him up from the airport. 

“I haven't done anything! Lately.”

“As Jonathan,” she clarified. 

His expression told her everything she needed to know – he knew what she was talking about, all right, and he _had_ done something. Something big.

“Can we... not talk about it here?” he asked, looking at the crowd around them. Or searching for an escape route. Eva took his arm in a vice-like grip and almost dragged him to her car. 

“Hey, is this new? What happened to that little piece of junk you were driving?”

“My golden chariot died a glorious death on the highway, and I figured now that I actually make money I could afford something newer and a little more environmentally kind. Do _not_ change the subject.”

John squirmed on his seat, wrinkling the perfection of his bespoke suit, and Eva again cracked up internally over the fact her little rascal of a brother had become a respected business man here. At first she'd a little guiltily been waiting for the news he'd been caught embezzling the funds or gambling his personal property away, but John had taken to the field of antiquities like he'd spent his life – or three lives – preparing for it. 

“I'm waiting,” she said, and knew the steel in her voice was different to Evelyn, even to Nefertiri, because she had never commanded men, and Eva did, now. 

“Look, you were – Evelyn was – dying. My beloved sister was about to leave her life in her fifties, and that was just too damn soon.”

“But I didn't...” 

“No, not then. But that gave me – him – the idea. Or maybe it was born the moment Alex brought you back, or even when Imhotep brought Anck-su-Namun back. So he – I – worked on it for years – decades – even before the reason was clear. So when your illness came back, and I saw you gasping for breath, the misery on Alex's face, the pure terror on Rick's...” John's eyes were closed, his face echoing the remembered pain.

Eva slowed down because she had to fight the urge to close her own eyes.

“I performed the ritual.” 

“How?”

“I burnt my notes!”

“That's the first sensible thing I've heard from you regarding the subject.”

“It wouldn't work for anyone else either. I tied it to your Ba – soul, I should say in this time, shouldn't I?”

“And it worked?”

“Well, I do think it worked because your Goddess had a soft spot for you.”

“Or you? Your Majesty?”

“In any case,” John ignored her as he always did when his past life was mentioned – he seemed almost embarrassed to discuss it. “I didn't know it would work, of course, but somehow I _knew_ it did, if you know what I mean.”

“You always feel when your prayers are heard,” Eva muttered, clutching the little statuette of Hathor always around her neck, dangling from a leather thong.

“Precisely.”

“So what was the ritual _for_?”

“I knew our souls were somehow tied – even thought I swear I was only thinking about you and Rick – and I... I made the ties stronger, strong enough to call you back immediately, or as good as, and tied your memories to them. It worked better than I expected – I hadn't anticipated our full recollection of our first lives.”

“Were they our first?”

“I've never seen anything to contradict that.”

“But it wasn't immediately, was it – I was born decades later than I should have if...”

“Rick fulfilled your wish,” John said, quietly.

“He...”

“He lived a full life, even after you...”

Now Eva had to park the car to the side of the road, because she had not known that, had never asked. She could feel the tears forming in her eyes, and let them fall without shame. 

“Thank you,” she said, hoping he'd understand she was only thanking him for the words, the knowledge, not the damn fool ritual, even if that was the only reason they were here in the first place. 

“I wouldn't say he was happy,” John went on, “But he laughed with the grandchildren, taught little Dickon how to shoot, signed deals to have the last of your notes published, donated your personal collection to the British Museum, except for the pieces you had decided were too dangerous to, and those he took into his grave with him. I made sure of that.”

“You outlived him.”

“By the greatest of ironies, yes. My iron health held. I didn't know how it would work out, but... I was born when Jonathan died, so maybe the spell was centred on _me_ instead, as the caster? We are close enough in age.”

“So do you think Rick is our age, too... somewhere?”

“It would make sense, wouldn't it?”

“Would we recognise him? I mean, you and I met when we were six, why wasn't he around?”

“Would you have wanted to grow up with your husband? Wouldn't you have become more like siblings?”

“Maybe you're right. But aren't we old enough, now?”

“I don't know! Evy – Eva – sister... I don't know. We must have faith.”

“In Fate?”

“Or your Goddess.”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Evelyn__zpsaqijyqhp.jpg)

“Do you think Alex was there?” Rick asked her, looking at their sleeping son.

“No...” Evy said slowly, pondering. “No, I don't think so. My parents weren't the same either, I think... I think it's just you and me, and Jonathan and Ardeth. Alex is a new soul, as most people are, truly our son.”

“Aren't you truly your parents' daughter?”

“I am, and I am not. They raised me into what I am today, but my soul wasn't born from them.”

“Is it just us, then, for all of the world?”

“I think we are not meant to reincarnate, no matter what the people believe in the East. I think we are meant to come on Earth, and learn – and then leave. We were brought back because we needed to correct the mistakes done the first time around.”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Nefertiri_zpsxt3uc2ku.jpg)

Nefertiri didn't know the rites of his people, but Khamudi had embraced the ways of the black land – its language, its people, its customs, its rulers – in his life, so she did not hesitate to send him to his afterlife with their customs either. 

She knew he abandoned his duty to remain close to her, left his fellow Medjai, his brother, to their new mission, forsaking his vows for another, an unspoken one. He didn't deserve to share their honours in death, but she bestowed him her own. 

She buried him like a husband, paying the priests and embalmers for the most intricate ceremonies, for the best ingredients, hired women to weep at the head of the funeral procession, even if she was the only family present. 

The tomb had been meant for a priest, but he was still healthy, he had time to acquire another – Khamudi was taken in his prime. Taken. Gave his life for her. 

She wished she could have left the world with him, but who would have prepared their bodies if she had? She was a warrior priestess, meant for no living man, and even though she would have been buried in honours, the unknown warrior dead beside her? They might have burnt him as one of the assailants. 

There were no tombs for the mercenaries who had attacked her and the temple, no rituals, no prayers. Their Ba would have no home on Earth to return to, and no one to whisper their names to the eons to keep them alive.

Khamudi would never be forgotten, not as long as she had breath in her, and silver to pay for the prayers to be sung.

And one day, they would meet in the Field of Reeds. He had promised to wait for her.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

“I don't think I ever was there,” she said. “I think the Goddess kept me at her employ even after I left my body behind.”

“You never came,” he said, as if really remembering the afterlife as they had pictured it back then.

“But when I returned to the Physical world, she sent you to join me, I am sure of it.”

“To help?” he suggested. She shrugged.

“Maybe. Maybe as... a reward, for a work well done.”

“But we were not the same.”

“No, not then. We shared the souls but not the memories, and the memories make us as much as our bodies.”

“But we found each other” he said, smiling, and she took his hand. “And we recognised each other.”

“Or just fell in love,” Eva said.

“Or just fell in love,” he conceded. “Fate, destiny... random chance, who knows.”

“But now...”

“Now. Now we are back, and not by Her hand, and now we have both the souls and the memories.”

“But we're more than that. That's why I call myself Eva. I'm not Evelyn. I'm not Nefertiri. But I'm not Rose Evalina Mallen, either.”

“I thought I was crazy.”

“Maybe we were? Who could live through what we did and call themselves sane?”

“I don't know whether to thank your brother or damn him to hell.”

“He meant well.”

“Is this the end?”

“Meeting me?”

“No, this life. We get to... Gods, we get to share everything, from the beginning. Is this finally our reward?”

“You mean, maybe the gods used Jonathan as their tool?” 

“Well, he's a tool alright.”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

“Do you think we could find your tomb?” Eva asked one day when Ricket was going through his grant application for the dig in the Valley of the Kings.

“What was that, honey?” he asked, distractedly.

“Your tomb. As Khamudi. I gave you the best funeral my riches could buy, you know.”

“You lived, then, after...” He put the pen down, and turned to face her. 

She moved to lean against him, needing to feel his living warmth when remembering the loss.

“Yes. Nefertiri grew old in the service of Hathor, and not a day went by she didn't offer food sacrifices by the altar by your tomb. She had the scribes and artisans provide you with detailed instructions to survive the journey to afterlife, and packed everything you might need with you – enough to keep you both taken care of once she joined you. Servants and weapons and food, clothes and ale, games to share, and legends to read.”

“I never knew that.”

“How could you? I never felt your Ka or Ba present, and had to hope everything was all right, that you'd made the trip and was waiting for me. But I don't think I ever arrived.”

“I don't think so either, although I don't even know why, because I can't remember the afterlife.”

“Maybe it's because we knew we'd been apart for too long before we met in the nineteen twenties.”

“Maybe.”

“But I was just wondering... Dendera area has been well plundered, but maybe... knowing exactly where to look...”

“But how would you know exactly? It was a long, long time ago.”

“It was last night.”

“You know what I mean, the world has changed, the climate has changed, and the area will look drastically different.”

“You don't want to find out, do you?”

“Don't you think it would be odd? Excavating your own tomb? If it's all there, isn't it better for it to stay there?”

“I wouldn't have expected that attitude from an archaeologist, I admit.”

“You don't feel it would be weird?”

“Do you think Evelyn would have gone there if she'd known?”

“Evelyn did not remember that time as well as you. Maybe it would have carried less emotional carriage. And maybe she would have wanted to satisfy her curiosity concerning the era, and the people.”

“And you aren't curious?”

“What about you, where are you buried?”

“I don't know. I did make preparations, of course I did, but as to whether they were carried out...”

“Did your tomb rival mine?”

“No. It... echoed yours. One might even say in neighboured yours.”

“What did you do?”

“I buried you like a husband. So I prepared my own dwelling like a wife. Our tombs were conjoined.”

“Imhotep tried to bring Anck-su-Namun back physically, reanimating her corpse as he had been raised. Do you think... Are the bodies still there?”

“We grew up, this time as well as last.”

“Yes, I know but...”

“How would that even _work_? Our Bas are already here.”

“I don't even know what I'm after here. Besides, I thought you were done with Egyptology?”

“How could I, when it's your field?”

“You want to be my Rick?”

“Well, I do have a few doctorates in the field. It's just no one believes that I have them.”

“It's a surprising amount of work even knowing the language. I mean, having to find the published material to back your theories. And I was never that clear on any other part of the history than that one period in time.”

“You wrote about Evelyn.”

“Why not? At least I knew I could count on her work being right. At least concerning the translations and the time period... What were we even talking about?”

“You applying for a permit to dig at Dendera.”

“Maybe in a few years when we are done with this one,” Ricket conceded, and Eva smiled. Maybe she should brush up on her hieroglyphs. And maybe check Google Earth for familiar landmarks.

[](http://40.media.tumblr.com/f226cb2b1f56d2b1b40d5b66f7673ccc/tumblr_o5siunQDN51v71e6to5_1280.png)

“Just promise me one thing,” Ricket said, looking solemn.

“Yes?”

“We'll never, ever dig up Am-Shere.”

Eva laughed at that, but shook her head. “Nope, no way, no how. If we did find something, that would be hard to explain. And uncovering proof the O'Connells were there might detract from my... Evelyn's, reputation.”

“Yes, of course, that's what I'm worried about. And not about undead mummies and pygmy mummies and a goddamn giant scorpion... man scorpion... thing,”

“I wonder, would the books of the Dead and Life be there still?”

“Never, ever dig up Am-Shere!”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Nefertiri_zpsxt3uc2ku.jpg)

When she sang him to his rest she made sure he had the clearest instructions in his tomb – he was not born into their faith, she needed to make sure he would know the right words, remember the right turns, give the right answers, to reach the field of Ḥetep, to make his way to the West where her parents already resided. 

Maybe in the the land beyond they could finally be together, without guilt, without restrictions.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

The door was resealed, but in the ancient times, and for the longest time they couldn't tell whether it had been tampered by grave robbers or the priests burying Nefertiri. They took their time with the door too, slowly removing the seals, trying to keep the hieroglyphs intact. 

Eva had learned photography, and was officially there to document the dig. It didn't stop her from grabbing a shovel every now and then, or deciphering hieroglyphs – she did their transcribing as well, seeing that she remembered the texts, knew what was supposed to be there, so it was trivial filling in the blanks where the endless winds had erased a mark or three. 

The storage room they entered was untouched by robbers, or at least that's how it seemed to Eva, and she had to blink back tears to see that everything was still there. The stores of grain and ale, furniture and statues, linen clothes and wooden toys, everything she had kept from her former life in the palace, and everything she thought they could need in the life after death. 

The next door was not sealed, and they broke through the sand stone easily. The coffin room held no golden chambers like Tut-Ankh-Amon's but a stone sarcophagus, with elaborate decorations, and the canopic jars holding his organs. But there were two sets of jars.

“Khamudi, beloved of Nefertiri, daughter of Seti I, protected by the goddess Hathor in his journey to the afterlife. Wait for me,” Eva read, longing to run her hands over the familiar marks.

The other members of their group there didn't even blink anymore at her rapid translations, merely nodded along as they saw the cartouches.

“Khamudi is not an Egyptian name, but this is all classic 19th Century funerary custom,” one of them said, and Eva sighed.

“Isn't the explanation there in front of your face? Beloved of a daughter of the Pharaoh?” another asked.

“But not a husband,” third remarked. “That word is conspicuously missing.”

“Her beloved was a priestess,” Eva reminded, knowing Nefertiri's historicity had been amply proven by Evelyn's work in tracing her steps. “She couldn't marry him.”

“But she claimed him in death,” one of the group said, almost sounding wistful, maybe at the romance of it all.

It took them weeks to get to the opening of the sarcophagus, and even then they rushed a bit – they were still in the middle of cataloguing everything in the rooms before. There were precious few Eva didn't remember helping place in the tomb herself, but it's not like Nefertiri had had that many Earthly possessions, and wouldn't have needed much to take with her into the grave. And there were the little alabaster jars with the heads of the sons of Horus to give her hope. 

When they pried open the heavy stone lid they were surprised at what was revealed under it – the wooden coffin lid was not properly in its place, it was raised like the mummy inside was too big for it. They removed it as quickly as they could and still make sure they didn't break anything in their haste.

There were two mummies. The priests had not followed Nefertiri's instructions for her own tomb, or then it had been looted at some point, and someone had rescued her mummy and placed it in the arms of her beloved – metaphorically speaking – and the sight was almost modern. The Egyptians didn't need the proximity for their dead, knowing their souls would be united, so this physical closeness was rare, and beautiful in its rarity.

Eva took Ricket's hand and squeezed it firmly.

“Death is before me today,” he was reciting quietly, “Like the home that a man longs to see...”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

He did not look exactly like Rick or Khamudi but she recognised him instantly. He did not share their imposing physical presence: this was not a soldier, not even much of a man of action. He looked... he looked like a librarian, Eva decided, and smiled. 

“Darling,” she said, not yet knowing his name, just recognising the recognition in his eyes, and the joy of finally meeting. 

“Am I late, honey?” he asked, and the grin she knew and had loved so many times before was there in his eyes if not yet on his lips. 

“You're just in time to escort me to this lecture.”

“Well, it's not like it'll start without me,” he said, and after a blink she realised the implication and burst out in laughter. 

She did not mean to be mean – the idea of him being the lecturer wasn't funny on its own – and he seemed to get that, because he laughed too, drinking in her face, her demeanour, the blue jeans, the khaki shirt, the leather belt with its pouches. 

The opposition in all things: her hair short, his long, she in the practical browns of an adventurer, he in the soft materials of an academician – she with the grin, and the hidden weapons, he with the soft smile and a pile of books.

“Dr. Conner Richards,” she said, musing, smiling at the sounds, and the pleasure of finally knowing his name.

“Call me Ricket,” he said, smiling, and she grinned back. 

“I'm Eva.”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

How do you talk to a woman you've only just met, but whom you've known and loved in two life times already? 

Do you start from the assumption she loves you too? How do you initiate a first kiss, when you can remember so many things you've done with her, to her, to... another her, in another lifetime, and, Gods, he just wanted to marry her so that his life would finally make sense.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Eva_zps45is8khp.jpg)

They eloped to Las Vegas the day after they met.

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0Ricket_zpshexgimes.jpg)

“Are we crazy?” Ricket asked.

“Yes,” Eva replied, decidedly, and shot him the grin he had come to love so much-

“I mean, we have all the time in the world, are we rushing things?”

“We're already married,” she reminded him.

“We were.”

“We've shared years and vows, a ceremony here, now, can't really make a difference, can it?”

“No. No, I suppose it can't. And I...” He paused to look for words to convey what he felt.

“You?”

“I like it. It felt wrong to... I like it.”

“I know. I feel restless, as if until we do this, something bad could happen.”

“Bad how?”

“I don't know! Maybe we'll forget? I just feel like we need the ritual.”

“I'm not saying no, Eva. Let's go find an Elvis impersonator to marry us.”

“Oh come on, some class, Ricket – I'm sure we can find a Ramses or a Tut.”

“We could go to the one that's made up to look like an Egyptian temple!”

“The faker the better.”

“I love you so goddamn much, woman, you do know that, right?”

“Me, me?”

“Evelyn wouldn't have gone for a fake temple. And Nefertiri...”

“Oh, she would have rioted if she saw this place!”

“So I love you. Your soul, in this body, in this time, and I want the fakest ceremony we can find, so that only us two can appreciate the value of it.”

“Because only the ritual matters, only the result, and it'll be like a secret if we're the only ones who know what it really means. And my parents will be so mad.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It's not a bad thing.”

“My mom would have understood, I think.”

“I wish John was here.”

“Do you really?”

“No, not really. He's a good friend, a brother I never had here, but the more I remembered, the harder it got to... you know.”

“I know. Ramses, you think?”

“How do you know?”

“I meant, to marry us, but yeah – that would make sense, wouldn't it? It's his fault – or thanks to him – that we are here in the first place.”

“Or third – but who's counting? Seriously, how did you know? I don't think Rick ever made the connection.”

“As much as he loved you – her – you, he still wasn't much for the theory. But I devoured all the books I could find on the subject, and when I found Nevertiri, and her father... I found the next king, too, and Rick _knew_ Jonathan was the king, I think, even if he never learnt his ruler name from Khamudi's memories, from the dreams.”

[](http://41.media.tumblr.com/8f7cef9b36cefede43bafdd1c9ba9e18/tumblr_o5siunQDN51v71e6to2_1280.png)

They looked at each other, all straight faced, then burst out in laughter at the same time, and Ricket's heart was full to bursting. 

He'd known he loved her, or was going to love her, or used to love her, or all of the above, but he had never realised how urgent, how insistent, how _real_ it was going to feel. He _loved_ her, Eva, not just Evelyn or Nefertiri. He loved the woman she had grown into, with her memories, as well as the experiences of this life time.

And she loved him, and her eyes were sparkling with it, the joy on her face was testifying it – she loved _him_ , Ricket, as he was, the way he'd grown into, not just Rick, or Khamudi, in him. 

“I love you,” he said, and he knew she understood what he meant.

“I love you too. I'm so glad you're you.”

[](http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q218/niki_chidon/0John_zps91jrmfyv.jpg)

John laughed for a full minute when he received the photo of them, in their everyday clothes, grinning in front of the fakest, most generic pharaoh you ever saw, using plastic rings that looked like they came from an Easter egg to seal their vows. 

They looked so happy, so proud, so joyous, that he knew he could never, ever regret what he'd done.

[](http://41.media.tumblr.com/d472fa9ba03a31053db084dbf99c3a35/tumblr_o5siunQDN51v71e6to1_1280.png)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for Like the Course of a Stream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6998335) by [Toothpudding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toothpudding/pseuds/Toothpudding)




End file.
